Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2018-04-18 Rail Summary MinutesCITY COUNCIL RAIL COMMITTEE FINAL SENSE MINUTES Page 1 of 25 Special Meeting April 18, 2018 Chairperson Wolbach called the meeting to order at 8:06 A.M. in the Council Chambers, 250 Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto, California. Present: Fine, Kou, Scharff, Wolbach (Chair) Absent: Oral Communications Neva Yarkin wanted to have Committee Members who will not be termed out in the near future on the Rail Committee because the rail project will affect the City of Palo Alto (City) for a long time. She was concerned about the new consultant AECOM because they worked for High Speed Rail (HSR) and Caltrain and wanted to hear from an emanate domain lawyer to hear their explanation of rules and procedures if homes were taken. David Shen stated that 300 people have signed a petition to support any lowered rail such as a trench or tunnel option and if a trench or tunnel was not an option, they suggested closing Churchill. Chair Wolbach said there was a mix up on the agenda and the new agenda included the first item being an introduction of the new consulting team; the second was a continued discussion of initial screening of the Master List of Options and the third was an update on interagency activities. Stuart Hansen stated that many of the hybrid options would be the best for the City. There were many pros, including a possible partial covered tunnel to help mitigate noise and they were more cost-effective. Martin Sommer stated that Menlo Park Rail Committee was considering raising their tracks starting at University Avenue, and then tying into the Ravenswood project. Back in March, 2018 he suggested that the Committee explore taking Alma across the creek and linking up with Alma in Menlo Park. He thought this option was very feasible FINAL SENSE MINUTES Page 2 of 25 Rail Committee Meeting Final Sense Minutes: 04/18/2018 Agenda Items 1. Introduction of new Railroad Grade Separation Consulting Team. Josh Mello, Chief Transportation Official introduced the new Project Manager from AECOM. Etty Mercurio, AECOM reported that AECOM’s contract with the City was approved and was to be executed by the City Council but AECOM was not under contract yet. She was attending the meeting to observe and introduce the team to the City Council Rail Committee (Committee). AECOM was a firm of about 80,000 people worldwide with 1,000 people in northern California and they employed a full-service engineering environmental consultant. At this time, AECOM had no involvement with High Speed Rail (HSR). APEX Strategies handled public outreach, Alta Planning was a bicycle and pedestrian planning firm, TJKM was doing traffic analysis, Merrill Morris was the landscape architect and Recco was a civil engineering firm that specialized in drainage. Some of AECOM projects included the Broadway grade separation in Burlingame, evaluation of Ravenswood, Oak Grove, Glennwood and Encinal in Menlo Park, and also the grade separation of Scott and Linden in South San Francisco and San Bruno. Ilene Goodwin was a principle of APEX Strategies and she was the public outreach facilitator. One tool that AECOM used was three dimensional (3-D) animations; this helped people see what the crossing option looked like. Ed Shikada, Assistant City Manager and Utilities General Manager reiterated that the City Council approved to execute the contract and Staff was working on finalizing that. Staff was going to be offering support to AECOM and their team. Deputy City Manager Rob de Geus was the City Staff support for public outreach. Council Member Scharff liked the animations and asked if the animations could be used to show possible options or if the animations required engineering drawings. Mr. Mello answered that due to the cost of the animations, Staff suggested using those when the Committee narrowed down the list to four or eight alternatives. Council Member Scharff asked how much the animations were. FINAL SENSE MINUTES Page 3 of 25 Rail Committee Meeting Final Sense Minutes: 04/18/2018 Mr. Mello answered that they were around $35,000 per animation. Mr. Shikada explained that the animations relied on a lot of baseline data, such as survey data, which surrounded land uses and showed where all the trees and poles were located. Council Member Scharff thought the animations might help the public understand why an alternative did not work but if the animations required a lot of data collection and money, it was not worth it. James Keene, City Manager stated that the City and the Committee might need to be judicious about the turnaround time and cost. He also liked the animations. Council Member Kou asked when the Committee would get to meet Ilene from APEX Strategies. Mr. Mello answered next month; they will be able to talk about community engagement with her. Council Member Kou inquired further that Staff would meet with Ilene before she was introduced to the community and to Council. Mr. Mello said there was a lot of work to be done to get the new team up to date on the rail project. Council Member Kou asked Ms. Mercurio if she worked on other projects or if she customized her team to specific projects. Ms. Mercurio worked with her current team on past projects. Council Member Kou asked how long the Paseo Padre project was. Ms. Mercurio answered that some projects took 10-years from environmental clearance to construction completion and ended up costing $120 million. Council Member Kou asked what the timeline was from the start to environmental clearance. FINAL SENSE MINUTES Page 4 of 25 Rail Committee Meeting Final Sense Minutes: 04/18/2018 Ms. Mercurio stated that the project did not use federal dollars so it was a 45-day filing process. Council Member Kou asked if there were negotiations with any freight train operators. Ms. Mercurio answered yes and said it was a long process. Mr. Shikada inquired how long the planning phase took before the project was led to environmental clearance. Ms. Mercurio answered that it was a year-long process and there were six community workshops in that time period. Council Member Fine wanted to know what parts of the project AECOM was planning to start in the next couple weeks and months. Mr. Mello stated that at the next Committee meeting will get all that information and have a discussion about it. Council Member Fine wanted to know which parts of the project the City and Committee were able to continue doing on their own. Mr. Shikada said Staff has not determined that at this time and would like to talk with AECOM and their team first. Mr. Keene added that the next Committee meeting was on May 22, 2018. Staff wanted to go to Council before the May 22nd Committee meeting so any questions could be answered. Stephen Rosenblum inquired if AECOM had experience in tunneling and if AECOM was going to pursue questions on project funding. He read off a list of goals in the AECOM contract and wanted the Committee to think about how an end-to-end tunnel in Palo Alto fulfilled all those goals. Chair Wolbach asked Staff or AECOM to answer the public’s questions. Ms. Mercurio said AECOM has experience in the United States and internationally, from planning to construction of the tunneling options. FINAL SENSE MINUTES Page 5 of 25 Rail Committee Meeting Final Sense Minutes: 04/18/2018 Mr. Mello added that Task Eight was to develop a Finance Plan for the rail projects. Chair Wolbach liked the animations and believed they were very important in helping to narrow down the alternatives. The sooner everyone was able to get visuals the better. Data collection for the animation was to be started as soon as possible so there was no delay for future meetings. NO ACTION TAKEN 2. Continued Discussion on the Initial Screening of the Master List of Ideas for the Connecting Palo Alto: Rail Program (Continued From March 21, 2018). Josh Mello, Chief Transportation Official stated that the presentation was a repeat of the March meeting presentation. Feedback from the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) was incorporated into the presentation. There were four at-grade crossings that were being discussed; Charleston, Meadow, Churchill and Palo Alto or Alma Street. Staff’s suggested approach to narrowing down the options was to have a Master List of 34 alternatives. Those alternatives came from input from the community and previous planning documents. Next, Staff started to screen those 34 ideas against the evaluation criteria that Council approved on September 6, 2017 to get the list narrowed down to 16 ideas. From there, the listed needed to be narrowed down to 4 to 8 alternatives; after which Staff started to use animation and other tools to help the City Council Rail Committee (Committee), Council and the public narrow the list down to one preferred solution for the rail crossings. He related that the scoring card presented to the Committee at the last meeting included a category called “minimized right-of-way” under Tier 2. This category addressed emanate domain. When looking at the scoring chart, there were three types of scores: there was an empty circle, which meant major property impacts; half circles meant some property impacts such as a driveway closure; and full circles meant minimal property impacts. To reduce the 34 ideas to 16, Staff used a funding feasibility fatal flaw screen and a constructability fatal flaw screen and struck out the ones that did not meet the criteria. Some things that fell under the constructability fatal flaw screen where things like a “shoo-fly” along Alma Street, freight, Caltrain's willingness to operate in a tunnel and several other items. Staff added an annual daily traffic category for each of the crossings on the results of the initial screening of the 16 preferred alternatives scorecard, by suggestion of the Committee. At the March 21st FINAL SENSE MINUTES Page 6 of 25 Rail Committee Meeting Final Sense Minutes: 04/18/2018 Committee meeting, the Committee requested more clarity on freight. Staff believed that freight continued to operate along the corridor. If the Committee and Council wished to pursue options that disrupted freight operations it could add years to the projects overall timeline. Staff addressed the concerns about the stations and their effects, which the Committee raised in March, 2018. All options that required a rebuild of Caltrain stations was not recommended and the 16 preferred alternatives that Staff presented did not include rebuilding any Caltrain stations. There were options that included a two percent grade but those options required a variance from Caltrain Design Standards. The TAC did not have an opinion on the scoring criteria and they did not have an opinion on different grade separation ideas. The TAC suggested eliminating the “no-build” options because traffic was only going to get worse in the coming years. The Circulation Study was being revised to reflect comments from the public and the Committee. One key observation about the Circulation Study was if you grade separate a crossing it attracted more traffic. The alternative of closing Meadow Drive and building a trench under Charleston Road did not help the City get to the one percent except on one side, so Staff suggested eliminating this option. There were three other alternative ideas that showed no great benefit, so Staff suggested eliminating those. In conclusion, Staff suggested going with the hybrid option, which extended across Loma Verde, Meadow and Charleston and eliminating the Meadow and Charleston hybrid. Staff also suggested combining all the Churchill closure options and then starting a menu of options for bikes and pedestrians. The same suggestion was made for the Palo Alto crossing. Caltrain suggested looking at a reverse hybrid at Loma Verde, Meadow and Charleston. With all the combining and reconfiguring of the 16 ideas, 10 preferred alternatives were left. James Keene, City Manager suggested the Committee think of some way to approach ideas that helped best move the Committee through all the technical information that was just presented. He voiced appreciation to Mr. Mello and his team for all the work they did. Chair Wolbach appreciated Staff showing their step-by-step process on narrowing down the 34 options to 16, and then to 10 preferred alternatives. Council Member Scharff appreciated the step-by-step elimination process. Council Member Fine agreed and appreciated Staff’s thought process. He wanted to know if Staff was going to update the Funding Paper. FINAL SENSE MINUTES Page 7 of 25 Rail Committee Meeting Final Sense Minutes: 04/18/2018 Mr. Mello said there was a Financing Plan Task in the AECOM contract. That task went into more detail, in comparison with the previous Financing White Paper presented to the Committee last year. Council Member Fine reiterated that Caltrain was the one who suggested a reversed hybrid in South Palo Alto. Mr. Mello noted Caltrain was not suggesting the reverse hybrid; they were in support of that idea and wanted that idea as an option. Council Member Fine wanted to know if there were any flexible ideas that addressed the no-build options. He gave an example of closing the gates during the week and opening them on the weekend or during low periods. Mr. Mello answered that the no-build ideas could include anything, not only safety updates. Mr. Keene added that it could be variable deployment. Council Member Fine was not in support of eliminating the no-build options. Council Member Scharff agreed with Council Member Fine but possibly saying “Churchill closed” or leaving it partially opened, so as not to add an alternative to the 10 but keep the option there as a consideration. Council Member Fine asked Staff if there was an option of a trench going through Churchill from South Palo Alto. Mr. Mello agreed that it was an idea but it was eliminated for constructability issues because there was not enough distance to get down from Embarcadero into a trench. Chair Wolbach asked if there would be enough distance to do a reverse hybrid. Mr. Mello commented that Staff could analyze a reverse hybrid at Churchill and add that alternative into the preferred alternatives. FINAL SENSE MINUTES Page 8 of 25 Rail Committee Meeting Final Sense Minutes: 04/18/2018 Council Member Kou appreciated Staff’s step-by-step layout and how they narrowed down the alternatives. She asked Staff if they received community input on the funding feasibility reports. Mr. Mello stated that they received input when Staff presented the Financing White Paper to the Committee. Council Member Kou wanted to know if the Financing White Paper was updated. Mr. Mello stated that AECOM will pick up the financing work where the previous consulting team left off. Staff was able to ask AECOM to respond to the previous Financing White Paper. Council Member Kou wanted to see what the community said, in terms of funding. Her concern dealt with the reverse hybrid because it was still a trench that was open and she was worried about public safety in terms of suicides. Chair Wolbach asked that Staff fix the typo for viaducts and have it say rail over road. He wanted to make sure that AECOM had all the community input about the Financing White Paper. He wanted AECOM to addresse the community questions that were raised. He was interested in knowing the reasons for eliminating the City-wide berms, viaducts and walls. Mr. Mello explained that those did not pass the constructability screen because they required a shoo-fly track, which would close or partially close Alma Street. Mr. Keene asked if there was a possibility to have a discussion about a partial viaduct at the north end of town. Mr. Mello agreed and explained that there were some viaducts that had piers that had very small footprints. Those may not require such a strong impact to Alma Street. Chair Wolbach was surprised that viaducts did not make it in Staff’s summary of the March meeting because there was discussion about having more information about that. He wanted to have viaducts as an option for consideration of preferred alternatives. FINAL SENSE MINUTES Page 9 of 25 Rail Committee Meeting Final Sense Minutes: 04/18/2018 Stephen Rosenblum thought any alternative needed to be in alignment with the new Comprehensive Plan. A bore tunnel fallowed all the goals set out in the Comprehensive Plan. He wanted solid answers about tunneling and funding and hoped AECOM would address these issues. Cedric de la Beaujardiere thought there needed to be an added criterion about how well the option deterred suicides. The viaduct options did not need to be eliminated because the reasons for doing so applied to trenches and trenches were not eliminated. He echoed the Committee’s request to have animations early on in the process. Martin Bernstein referenced an article from the Daily Journal tilted Caltrain Looks to Housing. Getting the air rights above or below the tracks helped the City fill its need for more housing. He agreed with using animations to show the public why an option will not work. He stated that in China they had developmental air rights underneath the tracks. David Shen spoke for the North Palo Alto Group around Churchill and Alma. That group was not in support of the hybrid option at Churchill. He did not see an option included if Churchill was closed for a bike and pedestrian underpass. Mr. Mello commented that a City-wide viaduct was included in the Master List of 34 ideas but it was ruled out because of constructability. A short viaduct option was not evaluated in the Master List. There was an option to add a bike and pedestrian underpass if Churchill did close. The Committee took a break from 9:22 P.M. to 9:31 P.M. Chair Wolbach asked if Staff had any more comments before deliberation began. Mr. Keene commented that a poll was sent out to the community and the public answered that they would be willing to pay an extra $100 a year to support infrastructure. He reiterated that the City was looking to close Palo Alto Avenue and Churchill and adding improvements. The no-build options were viable options and needed to be considered. There was no City-wide trench option anymore, there was no tunnel and there was nothing related to berm or viaducts. The Committee needed to start thinking of the options in terms of two groups, one that was in the City’s control and the other group including various parties and their input. The City was not good at FINAL SENSE MINUTES Page 10 of 25 Rail Committee Meeting Final Sense Minutes: 04/18/2018 getting other parties involved and getting their consent on ideas. The Committee needed to look at other cities and see what they were doing so if the preferred alternative was part of a regional upgrade then State and Federal funding could be obtained. If the City decided to go with a different alternative then Federal and State money might not be granted. The Committee needed to narrow down the options now so that after the break the Committee, Council and the public were able to get a preferred alternative by the year 2019. If that deadline was not met then there may be significant delays in this project and thus generate a bigger problem down the road. Council Member Scharff appreciated Staff narrowing down the Master List to 10 ideas. He thought the no-build options on Churchill and Meadow could be dropped as long as there was understanding that it was a flexible closure on Churchill. He wondered why the Palo Alto no-build option was something that should not be considered. Mr. Mello answered that the 10 alternatives included a no-build at Palo Alto Avenue, Churchill and Meadow. As part of the environmental analysis, these options will have to be consider. Council Member Scharff reiterated why it was not an option to partially close Churchill and open it in low traffic times, like late at night. Mr. Keene reiterated that the City was going to have to study no-build options at all of the locations due to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and National Environmental Policy Act (NEEPA). Council Member Scharff stated that it was simpler for the public and for Council to see the options and then see the variations that fell under those options that could be applied. He wanted to know if adding the reverse hybrid at Churchill was worth looking into. Mr. Mello explained that the reverse hybrid might address some of the concerns the public had about regular hybrid. These concerns included visual impacts and privacy violations. Council Member Scharff asked if the reverse hybrid was superior to a regular hybrid at Churchill. FINAL SENSE MINUTES Page 11 of 25 Rail Committee Meeting Final Sense Minutes: 04/18/2018 Mr. Mello answered yes in terms of the evaluation criteria. The challenge was if the reverse hybrid actually fit into that area. Council Member Scharff asked that Staff add that option to the list of preferred alternatives and bring back more information. If the reverse hybrid was added then he suggested taking off the regular Churchill hybrid. He asked Staff if they were looking for the Committee to approve the 10 ideas presented. Mr. Keene commented it would be ideal if the Committee could get the list reduced before it went to Council. Council Member Scharff thought Staff’s layout of how they got the 10 ideas was very helpful and should be presented to Council. Mr. Keene explained that even if the Committee recommended the 10 preferred alternatives, the Committee still had to convince the rest of the Council of why these alternatives were the best choices. Council Member Scharff articulated that its better time management for the Committee to focus on Staff’s proposed 10 options and not the full Master List of 34 ideas. MOTION: Council Member Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member Fine to recommend the City Council move forward with 10 Grade Separation Options recommended by Staff, with the addition of Reverse Hybrid Option. Council Member Scharff stated that in the next 6-months the Committee, Staff, City Council and the public needed to focus on the 11 options and analyze them closely. It was important to look at the variations under the options; such as if Churchill was closed would it be partially closed, was it possible to turn onto Alma and what all those variations looked like. He wondered if there was any emanate domain with the reverse hybrid and wanted all the options under Meadow and Charleston to be fully explored. Council Member Fine appreciated Mr. Keene pointing out that Palo Alto is behind in this project in terms of surrounding Cities. He requested more information on the stations in each scenario of the 10 alternatives and asked Staff if the no-build options would pass at the Public Utilities Commission (PUC). FINAL SENSE MINUTES Page 12 of 25 Rail Committee Meeting Final Sense Minutes: 04/18/2018 Ed Shikada, Assistant City Manager and Utilities General Manager said the PUC did not need to approve any new existing crossing but it was the change that they approved. Council Member Fine reiterated that potentially the City could do no builds at all the crossings. Mr. Mello stated that Caltrain was currently working on minor safety upgrades at all the stations. Also, there was a federally funded safety project that was beginning at the Churchill Avenue crossing. At the TAC meeting Staff asked the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) about possibly not having a grade separation at all eight crossings and the VTA wanted to get back to Staff with an answer. Mr. Shikada commented that there has been a push on High Speed Rail (HSR) to do grade separations along the rail corridor but there has not been any word. Council Member Fine reiterated that his concern is if service expansion happened along the corridor will the PUC push the City to upgrade and/or to add grade separations at the crossings. Mr. Mello answered that there could be increased safety issues with increased services so it is possible the PUC would then want to get involved and suggest upgrading the crossings. Council Member Fine stated that he would like Staff to schedule a presentation with the Committee, PUC and possibly the Caltrans to discuss these issues. He agreed that if the Committee was able to help them understand and digest the top 10 preferred alternatives, this would help push the process along faster. He wanted details on the financial and construction criteria regarding why things were being struck out of the 16 alternatives. A basic pricing method of the different variations fell under the options of closing or a partial closing. Council Member Kou was not ready to accept Staff’s suggested 10 preferred alternatives. She wanted more information on value capture, to understand more about freight trains, more information about the cost of successful tunneling in other cities, estimations of eminent domain and legal fees. She agreed the reverse hybrid should be studied but wanted more information if that involved taking properties. She asked Staff if there was any FINAL SENSE MINUTES Page 13 of 25 Rail Committee Meeting Final Sense Minutes: 04/18/2018 communication with Palo Alto High School, in terms of train noise. Also, she was not comfortable closing down streets quite yet and reiterated that the process was to cut the Master List of Alternatives Down to 10 and then take it to Council. She wanted to know when the community was able to provide input between this meeting and the Council meeting. Mr. Mello answered in terms of value capture, the previous Financing White Paper was an estimate of the revenue the City could receive. In regards to freight, the trench at Meadow and Charleston depended on getting a variance from Caltrain for two percent. That option moved forward because the community supported it. In regards to tunneling cost, the Financing White Paper also included estimations for City-wide tunneling. In terms of property impacts, he said that all 10 options were the lowest property impact options. Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) sat on the TAC and Staff briefed school Staff on where the City was in the project. Council Member Kou wanted to know when the community would be informed of the 10 options. Mr. Keene stated that the public would not benefit if the Committee did not decide on 10 options today. Before having public meetings there needed to be some deep research of the 10 options. Going to the Council was a public meeting and so the public was engaged. He voiced that in terms of financing it was not a question of what it would cost but how it was paid. In terms of value capture, there were better options on small variations of crossings versus the City-wide options. If the City was interested in getting Federal money then the City needed to start thinking about the timetable. Measure B was the top funding measure at this time. There was a potential Business Tax that could be explored, value capture and then the discussion was: what would Palo Alto citizens be willing to pay. The City needed to make some choices and move forward on this project or it was going to be left behind, in terms of the region moving forward with their rail crossings. He wanted to see the Committee really focus on the issues and by doing that, bring to light and possibly mitigate some of the constraints that were brought up. Rob de Geus, Deputy City Manager said the City allowed for time and space to invite the public to relay their thinking and thought processes about the project. These small meetings were going to continue throughout the whole process of this project. FINAL SENSE MINUTES Page 14 of 25 Rail Committee Meeting Final Sense Minutes: 04/18/2018 Mr. Shikada understood that residents were getting impatient and that the public really wanted the City to start narrowing down the options. Chair Wolbach interjected that there was a hard stop for this meeting and time was running out. Council Member Scharff responded that there was about an hour left of the discussion. Mr. Keene wanted the public, Committee and Council to understand that time was of the essence. Things needed to move forward so the City did not get behind. His last concern was that Council realized the in-depth details and risks, but the public did not. The public needed a shorter list of preferred alternatives so that people could see what the options entailed. Council Member Kou wanted to make sure that the options chosen were the best and she requested more information to ensure that was the result. She was not ready to approve the 10 options Staff proposed. Chair Wolbach stated that the Committee is not making decisions today, only recommendations. He wanted a more detailed analysis on safety, eminent domain, traffic flow and transportation. In order to get answers, the options needed to be narrowed down because deep analysis on 34 preferred alternatives was too costly. He asked Staff where safety was listed on the criteria because it needed to be added as a Tier 1 item. Council Member Fine explained that it was there in the beginning but was not sure why it did not show up in this presentation. He completely trusted the City and their consultants; safety was one of their top priorities. Chair Wolbach suggested minimizing the right of way acquisition and have eminent domain be moved to a Tier 1 priority. AMENDMENT: Chair Wolbach moved, seconded by Council Member XX to add to the Motion, “move eminent domain to a Tier 1 criteria.” Council Member Fine was not against that Amendment but believed that it was not the time to be going back and changing the criteria that was already approved by Council. FINAL SENSE MINUTES Page 15 of 25 Rail Committee Meeting Final Sense Minutes: 04/18/2018 Chair Wolbach reiterated that Staff was treating eminent domain as a top priority and it needed to be a top priority. Council Member Fine said that was not the topic of discussion. Some decisions were being made and change to the criteria was not helpful at this point in time. Mr. Keene articulated that the process was still very general. These 10 preferred alternatives were Staff’s suggestions but they could be changed. If the Committee changed eminent domain to Tier 1, that would not harm the process. Council Member Scharff agreed with Council Member Fine and said right now was not the time to be changing the criteria tiers. Chair Wolbach withdrew the Amendment because it was mentioned several times over the past year that safety and eminent domain were top priorities already. AMENDMENT WITHDRAWN BY THE MAKER Mr. de Geus noted that the public voiced their concern about eminent domain being in Tier 2. This was not the intention of the tiers but that has been brought up many of times. Council Member Scharff supported doing away with Tier 1 and Tier 2 and added that discussion was not for today but should be agenized at a different meeting. Chair Wolbach thought Staff should leave in the hybrid option for Churchill so that the Committee could compare and contrast against the reverse hybrid. Council Member Scharff liked removing the hybrid option at Churchill from the list. He wanted more details about the reverse hybrid. Chair Wolbach asked the Committee if they were ready to recommend taking out the hybrid option for Churchill and leaving the reverse hybrid in for more study. FINAL SENSE MINUTES Page 16 of 25 Rail Committee Meeting Final Sense Minutes: 04/18/2018 Council Member Fine did not agree on taking alternatives out. He wanted to move forward with the 10 options Staff recommended and suggested more work be done on understanding land use, station impacts, circulation, finances and construction impacts. Council Member Scharff agreed with Chair Wolbach but wanted more consensus among the Committee. If Council Member Fine wanted the regular hybrid to stay in the options, he was fine with that. Chair Wolbach commented that the Committee and the public were clear that the regular hybrid was not the top choice but were willing to keep it in the 10 options. Mr. Keene said these 10 preferred alternatives were recommendations to Council, Council will discuss them and then the preferred option list would come back to the Committee for further deliberation. Then in June, the preferred alternative list was going back to Council for a final decision on what should be studied. Chair Wolbach suggested adding a viaduct at Palo Alto Avenue and a viaduct for the segment of Meadow and Charleston. AMENDMENT: Chair Wolbach moved, seconded by Council Member XX to add to the Motion, “add ‘and/or viaduct’ to the recommended Palo Alto Avenue Hybrid Options.” Council Member Scharff asked for further clarification on the Amendment and if the Palo Alto Avenue was the one that would be meeting Menlo Park at a higher level. Mr. Mello agreed that there needed to be a viaduct over the creek and Palo Alto Avenue, and then the rail needed to go down to a berm and transition to grade level before University Avenue Station. Council Member Scharff wanted to know why Staff eliminated that option. Mr. Mello stated that it was still on the list and was named the Palo Alto Avenue hybrid. FINAL SENSE MINUTES Page 17 of 25 Rail Committee Meeting Final Sense Minutes: 04/18/2018 Mr. Keene stated that it is a partial viaduct option proceeding from Menlo Park into Palo Alto. Chair Wolbach stated that the word hybrid is different than viaduct. He suggested the Committee direct Staff to add the language and/or viaduct to the Palo Alto Avenue hybrid option, just for clarification. AMENDMENT RESTATED AND INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “add ‘and/or viaduct’ to the recommended Palo Alto Avenue Hybrid Option.” (New Part B) Chair Wolbach suggested adding an option of a viaduct for the segment of Meadow to Charleston. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “with the addition of a Viaduct Option for Meadow Drive and Charleston Road.” (New Part C) Mr. Mello recommended that if that option is added, it needed to be added as a new idea and be named “Meadow and Charleston viaduct.” Council Member Scharff asked why that was not an option. Mr. Mello noted that it was not one of the original 34 ideas. It was never suggested by the public, voiced by the Committee or in previous planning documents. Chair Wolbach stated that this option was one that was missed. Council Member Scharff disagreed; it was not that the option was missed, it was not added. People did not want a wall that caused visual impact to homes. Also, that was included in the Guiding Principles; this option was not going to happen because many people were against it. He clarified that he is not opposed to that option if Staff was interested in studying it. Chair Wolbach wanting to study it is because there was a potential for little to no eminent domain, it addressed the privacy concerns (not have a wall but poles that supported the structure) and it provided increased access across the tracks. FINAL SENSE MINUTES Page 18 of 25 Rail Committee Meeting Final Sense Minutes: 04/18/2018 Council Member Kou confirmed there was a difference between a viaduct and a berm. A viaduct was transparent and a berm was not. She was open to putting that option back on the list so it could be studied further. Mr. Mello articulated that if the Committee wanted to look into this option then it should be added to the 10 preferred alternatives as Number 11. Mr. Keene commented that narratives will be put into the Staff Report to help Council understand why things were added or taken off the Master List. Chair Wolbach felt the full Council needed to understand that there were no easy choices and that Council and the Committee needed to really think hard about the pros and cons of each option. Council Member Fine disagreed and said the message should not be that there are no easy choices. His suggested the message to Council would be that there are many choices, criteria have been set in place to evaluate the choices, Staff has done an initial screening of these choices and the choices have been narrowed down using the criteria set forth by Council. Council Member Scharff commented that the Committee does not have the authorization to change the criteria that were already adopted by City Council. Chair Wolbach reiterated that everything said today was a recommendation. Council Member Scharff was willing to put the tunnel option back into the preferred alternatives but he wanted some clarity from Council Member Kou on what information she needed to make that decision if the tunnel option should stay or go. One suggestion was to poll the public and Council to see if they were interested in putting housing or office buildings along the tracks for value capture. He stated that Council Tanaka mentioned that the City would not build mass housing or office along the rail. The value capture did not really work. Also, the Federal government was looking to fund rural transportation projects, not urban project, so not many funds were received. Council Member Kou stated that since she did not fully understand why the tunnel was taken out then the Council and the community would have the same question. She wanted AECOM to overlook Staff’s work and come back with more details on the eliminated alternatives. Also, she wanted an FINAL SENSE MINUTES Page 19 of 25 Rail Committee Meeting Final Sense Minutes: 04/18/2018 updated funding report that included the community feedback. She wanted an explanation to Council on how the Circulation Study was applied to the alternatives. She thought that in terms of value capture that parks and a north/south bike connection could be placed next to, or under the tracks. Council Member Scharff advised that when people talk about value capture when it pertained to the rail project, they meant the rail project. He asked Council Member Kou if there were any other ideas she wanted to put back into the Master List. Council Member Kou said no except for tunneling. She wanted to explore Business Tax, Employee Tax and any other options before it was deemed there was no funding. Mr. Keene restated: 1) there was the viaduct option included at Palo Alto Avenue; 2) there was an addition of reverse hybrid to the Master List of Preferred Alternatives; 3) there was a recommendation to look at viaduct options at Meadow and Churchill; and 4) there was an addition of further exploration on tunneling. The no-build options did not make a lot of sense, it was confusing and it needed to be eliminated from the list. Chair Wolbach agreed with Mr. Keene that except for CEQA, the no-build options were not options that needed a lot of focus. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “remove, No Build / Do Nothing Options from consideration, except for as needed for California Environmental Quality Act concerns.” (New Part D) Chair Wolbach asked for clarification on the segment between Meadow and Charleston and the possibility of doing a tunnel in that segment. Mr. Mello noted that there was no suggestion to look at a tunnel in that section. Some pros about having a tunnel in that segment were the possibility of not having to rebuild San Antonio Station or California Avenue Station. Council Member Kou asked Staff if it was feasible to start at the Mountain View Showers station, lower the rail and then bore a tunnel under Charleston and East Meadow and then come back up at Palo Alto Avenue. FINAL SENSE MINUTES Page 20 of 25 Rail Committee Meeting Final Sense Minutes: 04/18/2018 Mr. Mello stated that Staff could look at that option. Council Member Scharff agreed with the concept of a modified City-wide tunnel. Council Member Kou felt that in order for the public to understand what was going on, they needed technical data and to fully understand why alternatives were being taken off the master list. Chair Wolbach reiterated the idea of a City-wide tunnel and having it be studied further, but the portals needed to be in Palo Alto and not other Cities. Mr. Mello said yes, the deep bore tunnel was back on the list but it was modified so that the tunnel was shortened to fit within the City limits. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “with the addition of a City- wide Tunnel Option beginning and ending within Palo Alto.” (New Part E) Council Member Fine disagreed with the Amendment because constructing alternatives on the fly was not a good process. The City did not own the land and building mega office buildings in terms of value capture was not realistic. The tunnel was viewed before and was ruled out for many reasons; it should not be added back to the list. Council Member Scharff agreed that the tunnel was infeasible but also stated that a number of Council Members will want to discuss it in order to remove it. Council Member Fine agreed to add the tunnel option but cautioned that it was risky to add new options and revive ones that were removed. Council Member Scharff agreed that having the tunnel stay within the City limits made the tunnel appear to be more feasible. Chair Wolbach reiterated another option was a partial tunnel paralleled with a partial trench. FINAL SENSE MINUTES Page 21 of 25 Rail Committee Meeting Final Sense Minutes: 04/18/2018 Council Member Scharff noted it was a huge price difference and that was why the trench stayed but not the tunnel. Chair Wolbach stated that a partial tunnel was never considered. Council Member Scharff asked for clarification. Mr. Mello answered that a tunnel under Charleston and Meadow was never identified as an idea by the community. The trench under Charleston and Meadow was identified in previous planning efforts. Chair Wolbach said Staff seemed on board to add these options. Council Member Kou wanted to understand why stations could not be kept above ground in a tunnel or trench situation. Chair Wolbach answered that a partial trench allowed you to have stations above ground. Mr. Mello stated that the rail corridor was 4 miles long and the longest existing distance between stations or barriers was between San Antonio Station and Oregon Expressway. He added that the area north of Oregon Expressway had a lot more constraints because of existing features and station under crossing. Council Member Kou repeated her question of why stations were not able to be above ground. Mr. Mello explained there would be a ticket purchasing area above ground, and then escalators would take people down to the platforms. Chair Wolbach reiterated that a City-wide tunnel recommendation was added back into the list and also an addition of a partial tunnel south of Oregon Expressway. Council Member Scharff commented that freight was not able to run in a tunnel because of diesel fumes. He wanted Staff to come back to the Committee, showing which was superior, a tunnel or a trench. FINAL SENSE MINUTES Page 22 of 25 Rail Committee Meeting Final Sense Minutes: 04/18/2018 Mr. Mello offered to request modification with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) so there was a tunnel option. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “add, ‘or tunnel’ to the MTC Option.” (New Part F) Council Member Fine remarked that the Committee added four or five more options to the list and this process was not helping the overall goal of narrowing down the options. Council Member Scharff agreed but also pointed out that Staff had not done thorough work on the tunnel option. Council Member Fine observed that there were many options to be found when looking at alternatives. Chair Wolbach specified that Staff started with alternatives that were mentioned by the public. Through deliberation, the Committee had other alternatives that Staff did not have and those options were being presented to Council. Mr. Keene indicated that Staff supported the recommendation of the Meadow/Charleston trench including a tunnel option. In terms of value capture, it required radical densification in Palo Alto. Chair Wolbach asked Staff and the Committee if there was an understanding of the process and study items in terms of polling. Council Member Scharff remarked that Staff reached out to the other City Council Members not on the Committee, wanting to know what they wanted before the Council meeting. He mentioned authorizing Staff to add polling questions Staff or the Committee thought were worth adding. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “authorize Staff to conduct polling if Staff deems this appropriate.” (New Part G) Council Member Fine accepted the addition to the Motion but encouraged Staff to have a sit-down meeting with the other Council Members. FINAL SENSE MINUTES Page 23 of 25 Rail Committee Meeting Final Sense Minutes: 04/18/2018 Chair Wolbach reiterated that the Committee wanted more information about funding, value capture, TDRs and how the Circulation Study worked. Council Member Fine asked if AECOM could look over the Circulation Study, the construction impacts, the fatal flaw studies, the Financial Feasibility Study and the White Papers and validate them. Council Member Scharff wanted to add polling questions or do a separate poll. Mr. Keene mentioned that May 14, 2018 was the target date to present to Council. Council Member Scharff said that worked for him. Chair Wolbach wanted the Motion for Item C to read “a viaduct option for Meadow Drive and Charleston Road,” as opposed to “between.” Mr. Keene declared that a viaduct option being added to the recommended hybrid was not expansive. He acknowledged adding it to Palo Alto Avenue. Council Member Scharff agreed. Chair Wolbach wished to change Item B in the Motion to read “to the Palo Alto Avenue hybrid options.” Also, he wanted to change the word “between” to “for” in Item C in the Motion. Mr. Keene suggested changing Item D in the Motion to read “authorize Staff to recommend polling”. Council Member Scharff thought the polling was for the Finance Committee and if Staff wanted to poll before the Council meeting that was authorized. Mr. Keene thought combining a poll was too complicated. He wanted to talk to the polling consultant to see if results from the polling could be ready for a June Council meeting. Council Member Scharff mentioned that Staff needed to asks the other two Council Members for their input on polling. FINAL SENSE MINUTES Page 24 of 25 Rail Committee Meeting Final Sense Minutes: 04/18/2018 MOTION AS AMENDED RESTATED: Council Member Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member Fine to recommend the City Council move forward with the 10 Grade Separation Options recommended by Staff with the following changes: A. With the addition of Reverse Hybrid Option at Churchill Avenue; B. Add ‘and/or viaduct” to the recommended Palo Alto Avenue Hybrid Options; C. With the addition of a Viaduct Option for Meadow Drive and Charleston Road; D. Remove, No Build / Do Nothing Options from consideration, except for as needed for California Environmental Quality Act concerns; E. With the addition of a Citywide Tunnel Option beginning and ending within Palo Alto; F. Add, “or tunnel” to the MCT Option; and G. Authorize Staff to conduct polling if Staff deems this appropriate. MOTION AS AMENDED PASSED: 4-0 Council Member Kou gave thanks to Staff and her Colleagues for bringing back the tunneling option and being open to getting more information. 3. Verbal Update on Interagency Activities. Ed Shikada, Assistant City Manager and Utilities General Manager reported that there was a discussion among Palo Alto, Mountain View and Sunnyvale about the use of Measure B Funds. Mountain View advanced a proposal to Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) and VTA responded that they wanted to talk more formally about how the funding was to be allocated. Joshuah Mello, Chief Transportation Official noted that VTA was still refining program guidelines for Measure B and most of the programs required a ten percent local match. A question submitted to VTA was when the local funding contributions were going to be considered part of that local match. At the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) meeting, they wanted to establish a date of January 2019 cut-off date for a local match. Any funding contributed after January 2019 was considered a local match for the Measure B project. This was good for the City because all the funding for planning in 2019 was considered a local match. FINAL SENSE MINUTES Page 25 of 25 Rail Committee Meeting Final Sense Minutes: 04/18/2018 NO ACTION TAKEN Future Meetings and Agendas Chair Wolbach asked when the recommendation for Item 2 was going to Council. Ed Shikada, Assistant City Manager and Utilities General Manager answered May 7, 2018 but that date may be changed to May 14, 2018 due to conflicts. The next meeting of the City Council Rail Committee was scheduled for May 22, 2018. ADJOURNMENT: The meeting was adjourned at 11:32 A.M.